as long as we're here everything is alright
by madetohealxx
Summary: A rainy Saturday leads to a crafternoon at Monmouth Manufacturing.


Blue and Adam arrived together at Monmouth Manufacturing, dripping water and shivering from the chill. When they walked into the second floor, they found Gansey sitting on the floor, still in his pajamas and bare feet, working on repairing his miniature Henrietta while Noah watched over his shoulder.

"Why aren't you ready to go?" Adam asked. He had to nearly shout to be heard over the rain thundering on Monmouth's roof. "We're already running late."

Gansey looked up at the two of them and blinked. His eyes still looked tired behind his wire frame glasses, and it was clear he hadn't even heard them come in. "It's pouring out, we can't go hiking in this."

"I took off work for this," Adam grumped. "It might not even be raining once we get to Cabeswater."

"We might not even make it to Cabeswater with the way it's been coming down."

"So what, we're just going to sit around here all day and do nothing?"

Gansey did not look at Blue when he said, "Sorry, I honestly didn't think you would still come over if the weather was this bad." The weather's impact on their plans today had been one of the things he and Blue had talked about the night before, but he wasn't sure why she wouldn't have mentioned the potential problems to Adam when he picked her up.

"We should get food!" Ronan called from his bedroom, his voice carrying out to them over the thumping bass and pounding rain.

Gansey shrugged. "We can get food then come back here and figure out the next few weeks."

Blue shrugged back and nodded, then knocked Adam's arm with her shoulder. "Come on, you can use a break and we can get a plan of attack going. It's too late to un-take the day off anyway."

Adam sighed but agreed, already toeing off his soaked and muddy tennis shoes. Gansey started to push himself off the floor so they could go on a food run, but Blue waved her hand at him. "Don't bother, we can make Ronan do it. Ronan! Food! Let's go!"

They negotiated a food order and Blue stepped back into her squelching rain boots. "Mind if I tag along?"

"That's fine. Gansey, keep an eye on Chainsaw, I don't want to take her out in this."

Gansey nodded, not even looking up from the small cardboard building he was gluing back together. "The roads are probably terrible, so don't drive like a maniac with Blue in the car."

"Yes, Mom."

Blue trailed Ronan down the stairs and outside, hopping over the puddles he stomped through on their way to the BMW. They sat in the quiet dark of the car, the noise of the pounding rain and the swish-swish of the windshield wipers drowning out Ronan's music. They made it to the main road in silence before Blue spoke up. "Can we stop by my house first? I want to grab some things." Ronan didn't respond except to flick the blinker down so they would be heading toward 300 Fox Way instead.

As they were pulling into her driveway, Blue turned to Ronan and said, "You can wait here while I run inside."

He put the car in park and leaned back in his seat. "Gee, thanks for permission."

Blue stuck her tongue out at him, threw her hood up, and ran into the house. Less than a minute later, she ran back out carrying a medium-sized plastic bin. Ronan was on the phone placing their order for pick-up when she climbed back into the car, and he watched impassively while she struggled to shove the bin into the backseat and dripped all over him in the process.

Ronan finished his call, tossed his phone back into the center console, and glanced into the backseat. He squinted against the darkness but the bin was full of indistinct shapes and textures. "That was quick."

"I didn't need to pack it, I just had to grab it."

"What's in it?" he asked, adjusting the vents to blow more warm air toward Blue before pulling back into the street.

"Just some supplies for today."

"Why didn't you just bring them over when Adam picked you up?" Blue hesitated. "Since you knew we weren't hiking today, I mean." He said it nonchalantly, but Blue knew he had been holding that in since they left Monmouth.

She flushed. "Were you eavesdropping on us last night?"

Ronan snorted. "Monmouth doesn't exactly have a lot of privacy. Even with the rain coming down, I could hear him talking to you." He let that sit for a moment, then offered, "Besides, once you two decided to cancel Gansey let me know and said you would tell Parrish."

"I thought Adam needed a day off," Blue said. "We all do."

Ronan hummed his agreement and pulled into Nino's parking lot. The restaurant seemed too bright and silent after the dim car and pounding rain. They waited for their food in companionable quiet, broken only by the occasional giggle or half-hearted snarl as they poked, prodded, and dripped on each other.

With their arms full of pizza boxes and bags full of whatever else Ronan had ordered, they ran back out to the BMW. As they pulled back onto the road that would take them back to Monmouth, Ronan asked again, "So what's in the box?"

"I told you, supplies." He glanced at her for a moment and gave her a sardonic look before turning back to the road. "Craft supplies. I thought we could work on Henrietta." Ronan tensed. "We've all been busy since it was destroyed, but I thought," she trailed off, took in his tense form and the way he gripped the steering wheel. "I don't know, maybe today would be a good day to start fixing it back up," she finished more quietly.

"I don't craft."

He was still staring determinedly at the road, so Ronan did not see the skeptical look Blue gave him. "You create things all the time."

"That's different. I create things in my dreams, not like this."

"You'll manage," she responded dryly.

They drove silently for a few minutes, until enough of the tension had bled from Ronan so he could glance at Blue again. "I've considered dreaming it back for him, but I don't think I would be able to get it right."

"Even if you could dream it back, it wouldn't be the same. His Henrietta is more about the creating, not the creation itself."

Ronan scowled. "I still don't craft."

"You'll figure something out," Blue told him as they pulled into Monmouth's parking lot.

When they got back upstairs, Adam was curled up in the armchair with one of Gansey's textbooks, probably working on the reading for next week. Ronan dropped a bag full of food in his lap and another just outside Gansey's Henrietta, then walked back into his own room with Chainsaw following behind him.

Gansey looked up at Blue and his eyes widened at the stack of pizza boxes she was carrying. "Hungry, Jane?"

She huffed a laugh and pushed them off the lid of her plastic container and onto the corner of Gansey's desk. "Ronan wanted extra food so he wouldn't have to go back out in the storm." She carried her bin over to where Gansey was still sitting on the floor then disappeared into Ronan's room, emerging with a cardboard cup holder. "I'm pretty sure my food's in the bag with yours." She stopped to set a milkshake down for Noah, who smiled at her as she passed, and handed another cup off to Adam, who was still reading in-between bites of food. She settled herself on the floor just outside Henrietta and dug through the bag, pulling her food out so she could hand the rest to Gansey.

"What's in the box?" he asked between bites of fries.

"Craft supplies. If you don't mind, I thought I could help you work on rebuilding Henrietta today?" she offered shyly.

Gansey looked surprised but recovered quickly. "That would be great! Rebuilding hasn't been nearly as satisfying as building it the first time was."

Noah stood up, interested in Blue's box of mystery supplies. He rummaged through everything, taking a careful catalog of what she had. "Help yourself to whatever, Noah. It's mostly odds and ends leftover from other projects."

He pulled together a small pile of supplies and relocated himself to the sofa. The four of them worked on their projects in companionable silence, the sounds of the storm and the bass from Ronan's music only getting interrupted by the occasional rustle of someone's lunch bag. Ronan could be heard occasionally giving a command to Chainsaw, but whatever he was working on was mostly quiet as well.

When Gansey got up to help Adam sift through his notes, Blue glanced over at the building he had been working on. She recovered some of the supplies Noah had borrowed and was going to town with and quietly set about fixing the front of the bank.

When Gansey finished with Adam and came back to his miniature Henrietta, Blue looked up at him, suddenly sheepish. "Sorry, I just saw what you were trying to do and-"

He laughed a little. "No, that's fine! I really don't mind the- Wait, how did you get the front to stick out like that?"

"Oh, that's what I was saying! I saw what you were trying to do but you were cutting it in the wrong spot. If you cut it here," she took his hand and pulled him down to her level on the floor so he could see better, "and then here and put a dot of glue in the middle it will stick out like that."

"Good work, Jane," Gansey beamed at her. "I didn't know you were an origami expert."

She shrugged. "I like to make things."

Gansey tugged at his lip for a moment. "I've been having trouble getting the library to hold the right shape, will you take a look?"

They leaned together over the miniature town and worked to perfect a few of the buildings. Blue offered suggestions and critiques while Gansey explained his ultimate vision. They were kneeling together, pressed side to side, peering at the town from street level to see what other imperfections they could suss out, when Noah announced he was finished.

Blue, Gansey, and Adam looked up as one, Blue's eyes going wide and Gansey's eyebrows rising toward his hairline while a small smile appeared on Adam's face. "Noah..." Gansey began.

"I didn't even know I had that much glitter!" Blue exclaimed.

"Or that ghosts were so sticky," Adam added dryly.

Noah looked down at himself. To say he was covered in glitter did not even begin to describe the situation. "What were you trying to make?" Gansey asked.

"A card," Noah answered self-consciously. "I may have gotten a little carried away."

Blue hid a giggle behind her hand. "You're going to leave a trail of glitter in your wake for ages, Noah."

He sighed, then brightened. "What if I disappear?"

"Oh no," Gansey said. "No, do **not** go incorporeal on us while you're covered in glitter. Jane, go hold his hand."

"Then I'll get covered in it! Noah, just go outside."

He looked mournfully toward the door. "It's _raining_ out."

Gansey stopped short of saying something rude, but then told Noah, "Either way, you cannot drop it all in here. We'll never get rid of it!"

"Do you even own a vacuum?" Adam asked.

Gansey glared at him. "Of course not."

While they were bickering, Noah stood up, carefully extricating himself from the sofa so that he didn't dislodge too much of the glitter, and walked toward Ronan's room. The friendly squabbling was interrupted by Ronan's voice coming from inside his room. All they heard was, "What's up? What are you- Why are you climbing on my bed? Are you sparkling? WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?" and then peals of laughter from Noah. "My bed is covered- Chainsaw, no! There is glitter everywhere, Czerny!" Ronan stomped out of the room behind a still giggling Noah. "What the hell was that for?"

Adam, who was the only one not laying on the floor giggling, responded, "I assume that was a thank you for being thrown out the window," which set Noah off on another round of laughter.

Ronan glared at all four of them then stomped back into his room, slamming the door behind him. They could still hear him ordering Chainsaw away from the glitter as their giggles died down.

Once they had all settled down and started getting back to work, Blue told Noah, "Stop messing with that glitter and come help us."

"It's so shiny though!"

"You've had enough shiny," Gansey said.

Noah left the glitter behind and sat on the floor near Blue. He held the buildings together for her while the glue dried and then carefully put them back into their proper spots.

Blue knelt up so she could lean over Gansey's shoulder. "You're cutting that wrong."

"No I'm not," Gansey replied.

"You are. You're trying to make the front stick out, right? For the entryway?"

"Yes, but if I do it like this-"

"No look, if you cut along this side," she said, pointing to the opposite side of the building, "you can-"

"You're both wrong," Adam said without looking up from his notebook.

Blue was suddenly conscious of how much of her was pressed against Gansey's back and stood up. "What do you mean?"

Adam finished writing, then set his notebook aside and joined them on the floor, waving Blue back down with them. "If you add another piece to the front, it will come together a lot easier. See, how the entryway connects to the roof here?"

Adam and Gansey continued to work on the architecture of Henrietta, while Blue and Noah finished the pieces. She had just handed Noah another building when Ronan's door flew open and he emerged, a bundle of sheets in his arms.

He glared at Noah. "I'm taking the sheets off your bed."

Before Noah could protest, Blue nudged him with her foot. "You don't even sleep in there."

"It's still my room," Noah said.

Blue looked to Gansey for backup. "When the storm stops, we'll get you new sheets," he told Noah. "Let Ronan have yours now so he has somewhere to sleep tonight that won't leave him covered in glitter."

Noah thought about it then smiled. "Fine, take them."

"And before either of you say anything," Ronan added, nodding at Blue and Adam, "yes, I am throwing these out."

Blue shrugged, but Adam smiled at him. "You don't want to try washing them and see if you can get everything else you own also covered in glitter?"

Gansey grimaced. "Please no."

Ronan disposed of his sheets then brought the ones from Noah's bed into his room. In the main room, Gansey leaned back and surveyed Henrietta. "I think we're back to at least where it was before."

Adam nodded. "It looks good."

Blue stood and wiped her hands on her pants. "Pizza?"

Gansey looked at his watch. "Definitely pizza, and we can actually work on a plan of attack for the next few weeks now too."

Ronan came back out of his room with Chainsaw on his shoulder, and something small cupped in his hands. He glanced at the others, now all crowded around the pizza boxes and laughing at something Noah was saying, then crouched down to carefully place his creation in Gansey's Henrietta.

Blue quietly broke away from the laughing boys and crouched down next to Ronan. "Is that a tiny Pig? Did you dream it?"

"Yes, it's a tiny Pig, and no, I didn't dream it." He stood up but didn't move away from the miniature town. "I looked up how to build it out of paper. I did dream the markers though, the highlighters I had weren't cutting it."

Blue smiled up at him. "I knew you'd figure something out." She reached out and plucked a piece of glitter from his shoulder. "Now come get some pizza, and try not to get glitter all over everything."

He looked down at himself and scowled at the glitter stuck to his shirt, then rubbed his hand over it then through Blue's hair. "Too late," he told her with a grin.


End file.
